Positive Emotion
Positive emotions are powerful emotions—emotions that have the ability to affect you and those around you in good ways. Smiles are contagious displays of emotion; therefore, if there were ways to get people to smile more and elicit positive emotions, why wouldn’t we? After all, “The most easily measurable behavior associated with happiness is smiling” (p.166). I hypothesize that people will report having more positive emotions when it is sunny outside than when it is raining outside.
To test this hypothesis, 25 girls ranging in age from 14-18 were given a questionnaire at the beginning of the school day and then again at the end of the school day. The first day the questionnaire was given it was 52 degrees with steady rainfall. By the end of the day when the questionnaire was given again, it was roughly 56 degrees and mostly cloudy. Two days later, the same girls were given the same questionnaire, but it was 61 degrees and sunny, and then 75 degrees and sunny. I hypothesize that the individuals in this study will report experiencing more positive emotions not only at the beginning of the day, but will remain positive when retested at the end of the day.
The questionnaire given consisted of three questions relating to overall emotional status. Participants were asked to answer based on how they were feeling at the moment. Examples of questions would be: Of the following words, circle all that apply to how you are currently feeling; On a scale of 1-5 with 1 being sad and 5 being very happy, how do you currently feel; How many times have you smiled today (1-3, 3-6, 6-9, 10 and up); etc.
Results proved the above hypothesis to be correct. Based on questionnaire results, participants reported experiencing more positive emotions on the sunny day than on the rainy day. For example, a higher number of positive emotions were circled, there were more 4’s and 5’s, and participants reported smiling more frequently. Furthermore, results...